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Hello I am a Bulgarian citizen and I have been studying in the UK for the past two years. I would like to apply for naturalization as a British citizen in a few years, so I have a few questions that I couldn't find answers to:

1. Is there anything I have to do right now in terms of registration or sending forms somewhere? Do I have to send a form stating that I have begun my 5 years of residence needed for PR?

2. What kind of supporting evidence do I have to provide for the periods when I have been living in the country, if any? What kind of evidence do I have to provide for the periods that I have spent outside the country?

3. What is the step by step process to being naturalized and receiving a UK passport? Is it:
EU National=>(5 years)=>Permanent Residence=>(12 months)=>UK passport?

Hi MechaPrime,

Welcome to this forum, and well done on preparing your way to a passport early. Too many procrastinate these decisions and then cry over spilled milk.

The most important thing for you now is to secure evidence of comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI). If you want your student years to count as exercising treaty rights that is crucial and often overlooked. Together with a letter from your university that will work nicely to count towards your 5 years. You don't need CSI once you exercise treaty rights as a worker - but without it, HO will not accept your study years.

You should also keep in mind that for the qualifying period (the last 5 years from the date of your application, effectively excluding your first year) the time of your absences should not exceed 450 days (of which 90 days in the final year). I would recommend that keep a record (in Excel, for example) of your flights-/ferry-trips, that will make it much easier later to fill out form AN. It is very difficult to reconstruct these information after half a decade has passed!

Lastly, if I am not mistaken there are currently still some extra rules in force for A2 countries (e.g. accession worker card scheme). By the time you finish your studies this probably has changed, anyway. Better read up on that topic before you graduate.

MechaPrime wrote:EU National=>(5 years)=>Permanent Residence=>(12 months)=>UK passport?

Essentially, yes. Firstly, you can complete form EEA3 after 5 years (which is entirely voluntary, but highly recommended), then after another year fill out form AN to apply for citizenship, then attend the ceremony (=becoming a citizen) and finally apply for a passport.

Gyfrinachgar wrote:Hi MechaPrime,

Welcome to this forum, and well done on preparing your way to a passport early. Too many procrastinate these decisions and then cry over spilled milk.

Thank you, this community seems to be very welcoming, unlike most places on the internet I should have started the process at the very beginning of my studies, but I pushed it back quite a bit and even now I have some trouble recollecting when I traveled and where... And its been just two years...

Gyfrinachgar wrote:The most important thing for you now is to secure evidence of comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI). If you want your student years to count as exercising treaty rights that is crucial and often overlooked. Together with a letter from your university that will work nicely to count towards your 5 years. You don't need CSI once you exercise treaty rights as a worker - but without it, HO will not accept your study years.

Hm, so will a string of EHICs work for my student years? I have like three of them by now (two expired), because they are only valid for a year. I can also get a translated statement from my home country that I have been paying my health insurance for my years in university (or, rather, its been covered for). The UKBA website doesn't specifically state any other means of proving that I have CSI... The university letter is not a problem, i have to get one of these every year for my health insurance back home anyway.

So, I gather, it is not absolutely mandatory to file all boarding cards for inbound and outbound flights together with the application as evidence? I only have to list the dates?

I am painfully aware of some of the A2 restrictions as I have been waiting for my yellow card application to be processed for the better part of a year now :/ UKBA just takes sooo long on some of the simplest procedures. Hopefully these restrictions will all fall in 2014, but I don't know what measures might turn out to be be retroactive, so Ill check up on that.

Again, thank you so much for the thorough reply